Critical Pedagogy in Higher Education

Abstract

This chapter performs a dual role: it offers an overview of critical pedagogy, which is central to a number of chapters that follow, whilst at the same time presents an assessment of the potential benefits of deploying critical pedagogy in higher education (HE) for generating greater criticality and visions of a more democratic, humane, sociallyjust future. In doing this, it draws on a case study in applying critical pedagogy in English HE practised by the author. The argument set out is that, given the increasingly detrimental impact of neo-liberal restructuring on academia (see Bailey and Freedman 2011, Ball 2012, Beckmann and Cooper 2013), there is an urgent need for more radical approaches to teaching and learning in HE, approaches better able to generate more insightful critical appreciations of the imposed ‘order of things’ in contemporary times. Young people, democracy and broader societal well-being continue to be threatened by the neo-liberal project. Once the urgency of this agenda for HE has been established, the chapter will return to outline the emergence of critical pedagogy in Western thinking and introduce the reader to key exponents who have, in different ways, shaped the framework devised for this case study — more specifically, Paulo Freire, Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux and bell hooks.